The Audience
by esplanade
Summary: "How do you show kindness and honor in marble eyes? How do you convey the shade of blue when all you have to work with is white? And how on earth do you carve out lips, knowing that they cannot answer you when you speak?"


Notes: The Pygmalion myth is fascinating.

* * *

Mycroft Holmes had to push his way into the flat, feeling terribly undignified as he did so. The door was nearly blocked – as was the norm lately – with a myriad of scattered art supplies. Canvasses and large blocks of clay, paint sets and easels.

"Are you incapable of maintaining any semblance of neatness, Sherlock?"

Sherlock ignored him. He was sitting on the long dark leather sofa, behind a large sketchpad. His pale hands were covered in black charcoal smudges. He was still in his pajamas, which Mycroft had to admit was an improvement over how he'd found him last time he visited. On that occasion, the artist had been wrapped in a paint-covered sheet, and nothing else.

"Sherlock."

"I'm busy, Mycroft. I thought the barricade at the door would have alerted you to this, along with the fact that I didn't answer any of your calls."

"You're always busy. Surely whatever it is can wait."

Sherlock glared at him over his paper. In the harsh light of the lamp, he looked gaunt and starved for sleep. This was usually indicative of a new and fascinating project.

"What are you doing now?"

"Nothing I intend on discussing with you."

"Then we can discuss what _I_ am doing instead, which I would appreciate your help on."

"No."

"Sherlock, this could be an important commission for you. These are not clients you can turn down. They're too high up. And they've heard so much about you."

"I don't choose projects based on prestige."

"This isn't a choice." Mycroft set a folder on the end table, barely finding enough space to balance it amongst the pieces of charcoal. He left without another word, shutting the door with a decisive snap.

Sherlock waited until he could no longer hear his footsteps before picking up the folder with his messy hands, leaving streaks of black across the manila. He scanned his eyes over the project, and while it was true that the clients could not be any higher up the British ladder, he still did not see why it was necessary to get him to do their conversation piece. There were plenty of other artists who would have jumped at the opportunity. He scoffed and tossed the folder to the floor. In the back of his mind, he knew he would eventually have to give in. Mycroft would make his life a living hell if he didn't. But it could certainly wait, and it would never demand his full attention.

Unlike the sketch before him.

For days, Sherlock had walked through London, and he had seen so many people, and while they were mostly morons, they were also mostly _happy_. He had always believed genius required an audience, and watching the parades of people walking by, he realized quite suddenly that he lacked one. Of course, he had the people who commissioned him, the people who raved about his work. But they only saw the finished product. They never saw what went into it, and that was where the true genius was. Sherlock saw so much more than everyone else, and every detail went into a piece. Even details that could not be made physical. If he painted a woman, he wasn't just recreating her appearance, he was recreating her entire being. Which meant that his knowledge of her broken family, her failing mental health, and the affair she was nursing went into that portrait just as much as her eye color did. But no one would know that. He had never had anyone with which to share the private secrets behind every decision he made.

He had no audience.

So many nights, he spoke to a skull on his mantel, because there was no one else to regale with his motivations and back stories.

He hated that skull with every fiber of his being.

Of course, he did have a tendency to alienate everyone who even attempted to be his audience. Like Molly, the pretty little graphic designer, or Lestrade, the curator. Even on the best of days, they could only tolerate him for so long.

Sherlock was not one to grow sentimental, but he had woken up that morning with a terrible sense of solitude and found himself in one of his blacker moods. What was the point of doing and creating extraordinary things if no one was there to bear witness to the creative process? In a fit of annoyance with himself and the world, Sherlock drew someone he considered to be the ideal audience.

The page before him held a man, the kind of man who would appear simple and unobtrusive, someone whose face you could easily forget. Sherlock drew him in clothes that matched, old jeans and a jumper, something soft and comforting. His expression was admiring, but cautious. Sherlock had decided he wouldn't be another creative type. The more artists and musicians and writers you got in the same room, the quicker the situation would deteriorate into competition and displays of creative prowess. No, he would be a more scientific mind. That would allow him to be objectively critical, but still able to appreciate aesthetics. The way Sherlock had drawn him, he became the kind of man who had a lifetime's worth of stories behind his eyes, none of which he was inclined to share.

Sherlock rubbed his finger across the paper, fixing a shadow on the man's cheek, like someone putting a darker shade on a lamp to soften the light. This man could never appear too harsh. He was not a creature of sharp angles like Sherlock.

But Sherlock could not look on the drawing with love. All it did was frustrate him. Because while the man was an ideal audience, he was also a figment of his imagination. No amount of Sherlock creating back story and personality would change that.

He grabbed the entire page in one fist, and in a fit of disdain with himself, he crushed it, throwing it across the room.

* * *

When Sherlock finally let himself sleep nearly two days later, he dreamed of painting The Man. His dreams were all colors and life. The Man was not a sketch, but a human being. In the dream, he became real, walked right off the canvas and into Sherlock's arms. His voice was a hearth, and his touch, the fire that burned within it.

* * *

Baker Street was filled with crumpled paper. All of the discarded pieces held a variation of the same image. High quality sketch paper, and scrap typing paper, it didn't matter. For days, all Sherlock could do was fill them with The Man, his nonexistent audience. He used every medium: oil paints, watercolors, pastels, chalks, charcoals, India ink, marker, and even plain mechanical pencil. Whatever he could find, he used it to create, and then destroy, a rendering of the blond man with the wounded eyes.

They were all well done pieces, but Sherlock created them out of compulsion. He didn't make them because he wanted to. He made them because he _had_ to.

But no number of pieces would erase the image from his brain, and no number of nights would wipe The Man from his dreams.

* * *

Mycroft found Sherlock throwing clay at the wall when he came to the flat. Pieces of clay had been flung all over the room, and were still landing with dull thuds on various walls and surfaces.

"What are you doing, Sherlock?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?"

"If you keep it up, property damage."

Sherlock didn't offer more information. What he was doing was destroying the first three dimensional manifestation of The Man. He hadn't been able to capture his eyes the way he had on paper. It was worthless. It was hopeless. And it was a reminder that Sherlock could not wish him into existence.

During the night, he had stared at one of the chairs in the flat. He never sat in it. All he could think of was how perfectly suited it was to The Man, equally worn, equally inviting. The kitchen looked like a place he would enjoy as well. And the empty upstairs bedroom. Or, if Sherlock were being more honest with himself, his own room.

Mycroft approached the worn chair to sit down, and Sherlock pointed a threatening finger at him and said, "Not there." Mycroft shot him a look, the one he always used when he believed Sherlock was being unnecessarily difficult. But after a moment under Sherlock's gaze, he chose a different seat.

"How long has it been since you left the flat?"

"I don't know. How long has it been since you were here last?"

"Have you considered the special commission?"

Sherlock waved a hand to the coffee table before ripping the last of the clay to pieces, dropping it in front of him as if he had no energy left to properly ruin it. "Rough concept art for the painting over there."

Mycroft reached a pinstriped arm out and picked up the sketch. "This is quite good. They won't be able to tell that your heart isn't in it, though I can."

"It doesn't matter what you see, or don't see, in my work." Sherlock paced, feeling a bit more crazed than he would have liked.

Mycroft watched him for a moment before picking up one of the crushed pieces of paper. He smoothed it out and looked at the face on it. He picked up a second and found the same man. "Might I assume that the subject on all of this wasted paper is the same person?"

Sherlock froze and whipped around, glaring at his brother. "You've done your check-up to make sure I'm working for your precious client. Now get out. I have work to do."

* * *

Sherlock could draw him so easily, but he couldn't sculpt him. Why was it so much more difficult? It wasn't as if he didn't know every detail of his face and body. Sherlock was even beginning to feel like he had a better grip on The Man than he did on himself.

He ran his fingers over a piece of clay that had been formed into a hand. That was the only thing he'd been able to get right in this format. He had good hands, ones that Sherlock was sure could strangle just as easily as they could caress. Somewhere along the line, he realized this beautiful contradiction ran through all of The Man. Of course Sherlock's audience would have to be capable of being both brutal and gentle. A warrior heart, a healer soul. It was this facet of personality that made him understand part of the history The Man never told him. Even in his dreams, he never spoke of what had darkened him. But now Sherlock knew. His warrior heart had seen its war, and his healer's soul had done everything in its power to mend its victims.

It was a simple, honest life for a simple, honest man.

That night, when Sherlock was once again reduced to drawing him, wishing his hands were on the real man instead of on lines of graphite, he gave him a name as simple and honest as the rest of him.

John.

* * *

Sherlock almost opened his mouth one day to speak to one of the paintings. But he realized how deluded that made him sound and forced his mouth closed. Speaking to his audience in dreams was one thing. But in real life, it would only convince Mycroft that something was deeply wrong with him.

* * *

It couldn't be clay. Clay was too impermanent, too easily ruined. That was the problem. Sherlock's audience would be made from something grander, something stronger.

* * *

When Mycroft came again to check on Sherlock's progress, he walked right into a block of marble. It stood, white and tall, a perfect smooth edifice crammed into the flat. Sherlock was gone.

Mycroft snooped around, finding countless more pictures of his brother's favorite subject, all in various states of ruination. He came across small signs that Sherlock was still working on his _real_ job, but it was clear where his priorities currently were. He left a note about the impending deadline before abandoning the disaster area with a shake of his head.

* * *

Sherlock completed Mycroft's piece in one long stretch. He proceeded to stick it in his bedroom and forget all about it.

He stood before the block of marble, but didn't make a move to alter it. Not yet. He was going to make sure this was perfect.

Instead, he ran a hand over it, thinking only of John and Michelangelo: "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free."

* * *

Sherlock attended the tedious affair thrown by Mycroft's beloved clients. It was an agonizingly long night, and it had been so long since he was around so many people for an extended period of time that he felt caged within minutes of arriving. It didn't help that he felt he caught glimpses of John everywhere.

He was stranded in a crowd of people who were pretending to be his audience, when he knew that not a single one of them really understood his methods. They all fawned over the end result and congratulated him on his skills. He became less tactful as the night dragged on, and Mycroft chided him more than once.

How could he make them realize that to him they weren't his audience. They were a hoard.

* * *

Once it was over, Sherlock very bluntly told Mycroft to not call him for a few weeks.

He set to work.

* * *

Sherlock spent days awake at a time, sleeping only when he collapsed from exhaustion. His hands were sore, aching from hammering and chipping away at the stone. But slowly, the form of a human being began to arise. Sherlock had made him smaller than many men, but with such a strength that it was irrelevant. He worked tirelessly, even more so once he had the general shape created. Then it became a matter of developing the finer details, the things that truly made John who he was. The set of his jaw, the pride in his shoulders, the depth of his eyes, and those beautiful hands.

He decided to handle the body first, which led him to dress John in folds of jeans, but no shirt. Sherlock spent hours carving a visible scar into his shoulder. Warrior hearts and healer souls could never escape their vocations without gaining some scars. It radiated like an exploding star across the carefully executed contours of his skin. Sherlock stared at the scar for hours once he had completed it. He was no longer actively deciding things about John. It all came to him now like a prophecy awaiting fulfillment. He was trapped in this dreamlike state, where his entire field of vision was only white marble. The floor was covered in remnants of it that he had chipped away, all the pieces that were so obviously _not John_. It was stone snow, cold and unfeeling just as Sherlock had always believed himself to be. He had been compared to marble before. It seemed only fitting his audience should be marble as well, even if John was the kind of man who melted ice, instead of living with it.

* * *

"Hardly an Adonis."

Sherlock opened his eyes. He had evidently fallen asleep without meaning to. He was sprawled at the feet of the statue, and his brother was standing nearby, scrutinizing the figure.

"I thought I explicitly said to leave me alone."

"I was merely bringing this." He held up a large, sealed envelope. "A token of thanks for your most recent artistic success. The clients were so pleased, they insisted." He laid it on the end table and turned to leave. But he stopped, pausing and watching the statue carefully. "Shame to waste such exquisite marble on so average a subject."

Sherlock didn't have the time or the energy to respond. He picked up his tools and resumed his work without regarding Mycroft at all.

* * *

The hands were so easy to finish. Sherlock felt like he knew them better than anything. Some nights he was sure he knew exactly what those hands felt like, so warm and strong, that he grew frustrated that the marble hands were cold and still.

He saved the face for last. The face was where he could make one error and ruin everything. He added some final touches to the hair, appropriately tousled, and then slowly set about breathing life into the face of John.

How do you show kindness and honor in marble eyes? How do you convey the shade of blue when all you have to work with is white? And how on earth do you carve out lips, knowing that they cannot answer you when you speak?

* * *

When he was finished, he sat down in the scattered snow of marble and stared back up at the audience. Part of him felt accomplished, part of him empty. A statue was a poor substitute for what he wanted.

His face set in frustration, he rubbed his eyes, feeling the headache from the fatigue settling in over his skull. He stayed there, motionless, for a while longer before rising to his feet and laying a hand on the statue's face as if it could feel.

_Is it even possible for an audience to bear witness to the creation of itself?_

He drew his hand away and walked off to his room, collapsing.

He slept for an entire day.

* * *

Sherlock started talking to the statue as he used to talk to the skull. As he worked, he would lay out all the methodology that went into his pieces. But just as often, when he spoke aloud, it was about the mundane, his running commentary that he usually kept locked up inside his head. Even though logically he knew the statue of John was as deaf as the skull, it brought him some measure of comfort.

One day, he laid a hand over the scar, and when he removed it, the area was tinged. It was barely enough to see, just the slightest shift away from white, and no one except Sherlock would have even noticed. He stared at his own hand, wondering what pigment he had not adequately washed off. He would have to be more careful next time his hands touched marble.

* * *

The more Sherlock laid his hand on the scar, the more the color deepened. He had scrubbed his hands raw, but still, every time, his touch would darken the stone. Wondering if it was only that place, he grabbed the statue by the arm, and left behind another shift in color in the shape of his hand.

Sherlock backed away, suspiciously running his eyes over the statue.

He stalked off to the kitchen and came back with a sponge soaked down in water. He scrubbed all over the marble, but the color would not fade.

He was infuriated. What was tarnishing his audience? There was no logical reason for any of this!

He threw the sponge down on the floor and ran his hands over the entire statue like he was molding clay. The strange color continued to appear, darkening when he would cross over the same space more than once. He tried to place a name to the color he was seeing and when it finally came to him, he jerked his hands away as if he could be poisoned by further exposure.

_Flesh_.

Sherlock stared at the statue in horror, the splotches of pinkish tones mottling the marble. He was breathing heavily, some animal part of him preparing him for a fight with a predator. But as the word _flesh_ continued to course through his mind, he opted instead for flight, and ran from the flat.

* * *

It was many hours before Sherlock felt he had calmed down enough to return to Baker Street. He still had no explanations for the statue, for how it seemed to absorb his touch. There were no rule books for this, no scientific papers or evidence. The terrible uncertainty overwhelmed him. What would happen if he left the statue alone? Would the colors fade?

More importantly, what would happen if they deepened?

* * *

Sherlock gave the statue a wide berth for the next few days, and he noticed no change in color. He continued to speak out loud in front of it, not as convinced as he once was that it couldn't hear him.

Then, despite the gnawing fear inside him, he touched the statue again. The sections that were colored were slightly warmer than the surrounding marble. And they seemed almost more pliable.

When he touched the folds of clothing, he felt the texture of denim bloom underneath his fingertips. He held onto a wrist, not removing his hand for many minutes, and there, under the skin, he began to see what looked like veins.

Sherlock wondered if he was going insane, if some long term effects of his past drug use were finally catching up with him.

He ran his fingers over the white staring eyes and watched the deep blue creep into them. He smiled. They were now how he had envisioned them. They were never meant for white. Sherlock held the face of the statue between his hands, and after a long deliberation, most of which centered around what a downward spiral he was in, he brought his lips to the statue's in a reverent kiss. The color spread across the statue's entire face, a flush. There was no denying the lips were warmer and softer than stone. He almost thought he felt them form a smile.

If this was what insanity was like, he thought he would just assume never be sane again.

He laid a hand across the statue's chest as he leaned his forehead against its own. Near tears, he was bordering on some sort of ecstatic hysteria. He whispered the name _John_, and against the statue's lips, he breathed the words like a piece of his soul: "You have been a _wonderful_ audience."

Then the man who had been accused so many times of being heartless and cold, felt a second heartbeat spring to life beneath his palm. And with a rumbling vibration, a second voice said:

"Sherlock."


End file.
